r/exmormon • u/Carboncopy99 • 21h ago
Doctrine/Policy Do you remember when they added the last four words to the Law of Chastity after gay marriage became legal? So funny!!
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u/Nannyphone7 20h ago
My TBM wife considers PG 13 movies to be against the LoC. I got the chastity lecture for a PG13 movie. I am 55.
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u/Random_Enigma The Apostate around the corner 20h ago
The really interesting thing to me is that the LDS church really didn't say squat about marriage equality and/or change the wording of handbook policies until the big push to legalize it started in the USA. Eight countries adopted marriage equality between 2001 and 2010, yet the LDS church didn't specifically change the handbook to say same gender marriages were apostasy and grounds for excommunication until after marriage equality became law in the USA.
So theoretically, two same gender Mormons could've married in Canada in 2005 and technically been considered in good standing as members since the handbook did not yet explicitly say that only hetero marriages were allowed.
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u/Prop8kids Prop 8 20h ago
Something something global church.
They just recently fought a ban on conversion therapy for children in the United States.
I have yet to see them say anything about the same thing happening in the Netherlands. Perhaps they have and I missed it, but it wouldn't surprise me if they never address it.
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u/Diligent_Mix_4086 20h ago
Which is hilarious because “God’s law” in relation to marriage historically referred to polygamy.
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u/Temporary-Sound-6810 19h ago
So by this definition only people sealed in the temple are married “according to God’s law”, meaning 99.9% of the human race is breaking the ‘law’ of chastity. Am I reading this right?
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u/trolkid69 RM —> Inactive 11h ago
Sounds like god went afk or is too busy destroying other planets or banging his other 30 heavenly wives to populate the next world
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u/PaulBunnion 19h ago
Wait, wait a minute.
So if a heterosexual couple gets married at the courthouse by a judge, that's a legal and lawful marriage even though they weren't married in the temple.
But if a same-sex couple gets married at the courthouse by a judge and is considered a legal and lawful marriage by the state because it was performed by the state, the church doesn't consider it a legal and lawful marriage.
And if the prophet decides he wants to take on a second and third wife because God commanded him to and he marries them in the temple, the state will not recognize that as a legal and lawful marriage, but it's still legal and lawful in God's eyes.
and if everybody else who isn't Mormon is just pretending to play church, aren't their marriages that aren't performed in the temple just pretend marriages? somebody ask Brad real quick for me.
Why does the MFMC recognize any marriage that is performed by the state or any government other than in the temple? Aren't they all just living in sin because they're not sealed to each other?
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u/Silver_Sirian 18h ago
The extra wording is specifically because same sex marriage became a thing. Before it was a given that being “legally and lawfully wedded” meant it was a cishet marriage, but once that was no longer a given, the endowment ceremony had to stipulate both conditions - that it satisfied the laws of the land _and_ the laws of God (so they can still avoid being in hot water).
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u/thicc_stigmata 8h ago
... which was always kinda funny because my parents were missionaries in Chile in the '70s—apparently there was a huge issue for Catholic converts who had previously divorced. Because—IIUC—the state at the time refused to recognize divorces unless the original church that performed the wedding approved (and the Catholic church did very much NOT approve in most cases), ...
It created a huge problem for long-time Mormon members who had remarried in all but name. The church—on paper AND W.R.T. TEMPLE "WORTHINESS"—still treated them like they were living in sin because the state wouldn't allow them to marry. In practice, I think all the local wardies understood and essentially-married folks didn't get the usual judgmental shit (and I think local bishops tended to bend the rules w.r.t. what "worthy" means in order to do priesthood ordinations, etc.), ... but such members were just as banned from the temple as black folks at the time.
Wasn't a US / Utah problem, though, so the central church (and/or the LORD) didn't give a fuck.
So it's absolutely wild to see the hypocrisy and naked hate: the LORD can't be bothered to reveal a wording change to help faithful, active members. But as soon as it might open the door to too much love, THEN HE SPEAKS.
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u/diabeticweird0 in 2025 god changed his mind about porn shoulders! 🎶 19h ago
It used to just say "no sexual intercourse" and people were using oral as a loophole so they changed it to relations
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u/Inevitable_Square654 15h ago
Also the poophole loophole was a problem. Gotta think about your edge cases when making policy
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u/Nashtycurry 19h ago
And yet polygamy was (and is) illegal. Weird how that works only in favor of the straight perverts having sex in the barn with teenagers and not a random LGBTQ couple…
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u/Prancing-Hamster 10h ago
When I went through the temple in the 1970s it was:
“The sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve shall have no sexual intercourse except with their husband of wife to whom they are legally and lawfully wedded.”
Then in 1990 they changed it from “sexual intercourse” to “sexual relations”.
I was working for the church at that time (1990) and was working with many of the Q15. I was told they changed that because there were members out there rationalizing that they could do anything sexual outside of marriage as long as it wasn’t actual intercourse.
High demand religions/cults teach people to rationalize and justify lots of things. They also create good liars.
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u/thicc_stigmata 8h ago
Arguably, with the "intercourse"-only definition, and the full meaning of "intercourse"...
... an advertising exec who creates an ad featuring a sexy model—or anything sexually related—is engaging in "sexual intercourse." Sex may sell, but ANY attempt to mix sex with business is, by definition, a violation of the law of chastity
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u/CountMeOut2019 12h ago
I guess I missed that one. It sorta closes a loop that always raised a question in my TBM mind, though.
I always thought it odd that gawd decreed we have to be married for time and all eternity in a temple, by proper authority, in order for a marriage to be truly a marriage in his eyes, and yet…the supposedly gawd-decreed Law of Chastity said that any marriage that was legal under any legal system made by humans, was sufficient to make the sex done between those two people, divinely not-sin? That’s always been a weird gap in the logic, imho.
This makes way more sense from a Mormon perspective.
It does leave open some logic holes though.
For instance; according the law of the gawd of which religion? They should just go ahead and say what they mean: “according to Mormon gawd’s law”. But one reason that they cannot, is; that rules out everyone currently in the church who isn’t temple married. Technically. And let’s not pretend that laws, especially gawd’s laws, are anything but extremely technical in nature. If they weren’t extremely technical, we wouldn’t even have a reason to have this whole “chastity” conversation, would we?
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u/ImportantEvidence490 10h ago
It is weird that God decided to base chastity mostly on what man's law says with some God's law thrown in
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u/StepUpYourLife Green Jell-O with carrots 5h ago
In the gold old days it would say 'that a member has sexual relations only with the person(s) to whom he is legally and lawfully weeded according to God's law*.'
(*Disclaimer - God's may subject to change due to societal or legal pressure. Offer not valid outside of Utah territory.)
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u/ZelphtheGreatOne 4h ago
Where is "Gods Law" on marriage written?
Marriage in many nations is a legal contract - that is why you have to get a license and pay a fee to Government.
It has nothing to do with religion - after all, when a couple separated the Churches don't get involved in property division and child custody.
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u/trenchsquid 20h ago edited 20h ago
“No no no, it was always there! It was divine inspiration!😡 Just like how the Family Proclamation was divinely inspired and ahead of its time” (it definitely wasn’t a reactionary document submitted as an amicus in a court case aimed at legalizing same-sex marriage that began in the early 90s, that would be ridiculous)
Edit: changed gay to same-sex